Microsoft releases Windows Server Insider Preview build 16267

Two weeks after releasing Windows Server Insider Preview build 16257, Microsoft has released a new preview today. Build 16267 is now available from the Windows Server Insider Preview download page, but sadly, Microsoft says that "there are no new features".

In its release notes, Microsoft listed some general scenario highlights for the new build:

Developers and Containers:

New base container images (available on Windows Insider Docker Hub repo)

Optimized Nano Server base image (over 70% smaller)

The .NET team is providing a preview image based on Nano Server with .NET Core 2.0

The PowerShell team is providing a preview image based on PowerShell 6.0

Optimized Server Core base image (over 20% smaller)

Support for SMB volume mounting

Infrastructure for Orchestrators

Networking enhancements for ongoing Kubernetes work

Named pipe mapping support

Bug fixes, performance enhancements

Cloud Guest:

IIS

TLS info: administrators can make specific recommendations to default to HTTPS

Disaster Recovery

Storage Replica Test Failover

Guest + Host better together

vPMEM in Guest: Tenants can use and manage PMEM/SCM

Tenant-Aware VM Start Ordering: App Ready / OS Heartbeat for better load balancing

Guest RDMA

Improvement in time accuracy

Azure enlightened clusters – optimized to run on Azure IaaS

Cloud Host:

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) host

Security

Shielded Linux VM

SDN: Encrypted virtual networks

Secure clusters

SMB 1 disabled by default

Resiliency and Availability

SDN: Reduced downtime for tenant connections through gateways

Spaces Direct: Scoped Spaces to mitigate impact of multi-node loss

Spaces Direct: Marginal drive handling for predictive detection of drive failures

Efficiency

Data Deduplication available for ReFS

New Data Deduplication DataPort API for optimized ingress/egress

Space efficiency with ReFS Compaction

Performant Spaces Direct Multi Resilient Volumes (MRV)

Hyper-converged Scale

Cluster Sets: Significantly increases hyper-converged SDDC cloud scale by grouping multiple clusters into a larger fabric

Hardware support

Support for Storage Class Memory (SCM) in Spaces Direct

There are also some known issues to be aware of in build 16267:

Cluster Sets: A couple of key functionalities to enable end-to-end testing of Cluster Sets scenarios are not present in this build, so defer all evaluation of this scenario to a future build.

When a computer runs the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) from a local drive, the EFI system partition, which contains the WinPE image (boot.wim), does not have a drive letter assigned. This issue can adversely affect some automation.

Apps that call into the firewall, such apps that use networking, may become unresponsive until the user reboots because of an application hang end-task error (0xCFFFFFFF) in the Windows firewall API library (FirewallAPI.dll), which occurs when the library is blocked on an advanced local procedure call (ALPC) port while attempting to diagnose a connection failure and retrieve information.

A stop error may occur during volume repair in a cluster. The recommended workaround is to restart the computer. No corruption or data loss is expected.

To be able to download the new build, you'll need to be registered on either the consumer Windows Insider Program, or the Windows Insider Program for Business, which Microsoft introduced earlier this year. However, Microsoft pointed out:

If you signed up for Windows Insiders for Business using an AAD account, there is a temporary issue with access to the Windows Server Download page using AAD accounts. If you registered using an MSA account at the Windows Insider program, your MSA account may be used to access the page and to download builds until this is resolved.

These two product keys can be used for "unlimited activations of Windows Server... throughout the pre-release cycle":